a movie...and a Book

by Daniel Wagner

  “I’m just not that good at small talk, that’s why. And here in the train, sitting right next to each other, you’re almost forced to say something. It becomes pretty awkward. You know, sometimes it’s hard if you’re supposed to talk and you can’t think of anything to talk about.”

  “It probably is. I’ve never thought about it that way,” said the woman, still amused.

  “Yes,” said Jim, who apparently couldn’t think of anything else to say about it.

  The train kept moving on.

  18.

  On the island at about the same time.

  Lou was climbing a rock, sweating. The sun shone on his tanned arms. It was a hot summer day, and there was little wind.

  Liz already stood on top of the rock, looking down. “Come on, what’s up?” she called down.

  “Look, I want to enjoy the climb. If you go up all in a hurry, it’s no fun.”

  Liz laughed, rolling her eyes. It seemed she was in high spirits from being better at something. “Let’s meet at the top,” she shouted down, and disappeared out of Lou’s sight.

  He climbed a little faster.

  Liz hid in a cleft at the side of the small platform.

  Lou looked down; his sight began to blur. He focused up again, gathered courage, and continued to climb. Finally he dragged himself over the edge. He looked around but couldn’t spot Liz. Then, standing, he looked up.

  He still couldn’t see her.

  All of a sudden he heard someone laughing—it came from the crevice, of course.

  Lou looked around. He seemed a little insecure.

  Liz jumped out from her hiding place with a big grin. “Pretty clumsy, you are,” she said, and licked the corners of her lips. “But it’s cute on you.” Then she turned to look at the sea, or just in the general direction of the sea.

  “Look, if you think you’re such a superior climber, what about a little contest, then?”

  “Whatever you want,” Liz said, slowly turning, still beaming.

  “So you take this face and I’ll take the one on the other side. Whoever first reaches the top is the better climber.”

  “That’s not fair. We have to climb the same route,” she protested.

  “I’m not going to climb if someone is staring at me and judging my style,” he said, and added, “while feeling so superior .”

  “All right. But let’s switch the routes.”

  “Whatever you want,” Lou said, but it was clear he was trying to seem casual about it.

  19.

  On the train again.

  For a short moment Jim wasn’t sure if she had caught his eye in the reflection. He felt the urge to say something.

  As if feeling the pressure of the situation too—or maybe she had really caught his eye in the reflection— the woman spoke up and said, “Are you visiting your mother too?”

  “No, I’m going to visit my brother.”

  “Oh, yes, I guess I should have known,” she said. “So your brother has a girlfriend that looks like me?”

  “Very much so. Yes.”

  “Is she a nice person?”

  “I guess she is, but I don’t know her that well.”

  “Oh, yes. I guess I should have known that too,” she said. “I guess she must be, if she’s the girlfriend of your brother.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Jim, animated.

  The woman smiled.

  “He’s pretty unpredictable, my brother. Always full of energy, full of great ideas.”

  He had her full attention now.

  “He’s about forty. And do you know what he still does all the time?”

  “No.”

  “He plays these crazy video games. The ones where you have a steering wheel on the table and an acceleration pedal under the table.” Jim shook his head. “God, it looks so stupid if you come in and he’s sitting in the middle of the living room behind the steering wheel, with the TV going full blast. He’s way too old for that kind of stuff.”

  “Well, if he likes it. Why shouldn’t he, if he likes it?”

  “The crazy thing is, if you call him, and he’s in the middle of some race, he doesn’t even answer the phone. He says you destroy the whole spirit. He’s quite a character,” said Jim, shaking his head.

  The woman smiled for a while, seeking Jim’s eyes. But Jim was looking at the bunch of flowers. Then something snapped her back into her own world. Her expression changed instantly. “Oh, I have to hurry now. I’m sorry. Next stop is my stop,” said the woman. She started to pack her stuff.

  20.

  Back on the island.

  Liz already stood on top of the next small rock face, looking down. “Come on, what’s up?” she called down again.

  Lou didn’t process a reply, probably not because he was in a bad mood but simply because he was out of breath. At least, he wasn’t the kind of person that got irritated about such things. He was the kind of person who gave it his all—exhausted every idea to the limit, but when it was clear he’d lost, he’d lost.

  After a moment he once again dragged himself over the edge and lay, exhausted, on his back, sweating and breathing wildly.

  Liz looked at him, by now sitting on top of a stone. She didn’t say anything; she just looked at him.

  “You’re cute,” she said, observing Lou’s reaction.

  After a moment Lou said, “Yeah, I guess that’s what women really like: to feel superior to the stronger sex.” Then he added, “Even if it’s only in the smallest possible way.”

  Liz gave a fake laugh, but good-humoredly. Another time she could have been repelled by his comment. But her spirits, boosted by this beautiful summer day and by the exhaustion of climbing the rocks—and by winning, of course—were way too great to take offense.

  “No wonder you don’t have a girlfriend, with that attitude of yours. You need to learn to treat women with style,” she said, again observing Lou’s reaction.

  A smile toward the sky was his whole response. Lou looked like a perfectly happy man: never underestimate the effect of overexhaustion; together with sun and in the presence of a great girl it can easily become nirvana.

  “No kidding, why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  “You mean here on the island?” Lou said dryly.

  “No.”

  “The problem is I’m too happy with my life, that’s why.”

  “What?”

  “I just like to be sad sometimes. And if I had a girlfriend—with all these other things—I would be happy all the time.”

  Liz thought about it for a moment, then said, “You won’t be happy all the time with a girlfriend,” while brushing a strand of hair from her face.

  21.

  Jim and his younger brother, Andy, are in a gravel pit. By now it’s early afternoon.

  Jim was looking bored, holding a gun in his hands.

  “Don’t make a face like that,” said Andy. “It’s much more fun if you try to enjoy it a little.”

  Jim just closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Now try to hold it steady,” said Andy with an energy and enthusiasm that only reduced Jim’s willingness to enjoy it a little. “Do you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “So do it,” said Andy, while eyeing the thing critically. “Now hold your breath and aim at the target.”

  Jim did so. “And now?”

  “Don’t talk, damn it.” Andy gave it another inspecting look. “Now pull the trigger.”

  A shot went off.

  “You missed again.” Andy walked a three-step circle, shaking his head, animated. “Let’s try again.”

  “I’m not going to shoot this gun again. I promised I would try, and I’m done now,” said Jim, looking at the bottles standing on top of an old log.

  “Just try again. If you hit them it’s so much fun.”

  “Maybe for you, but not for me.”

  “If you’re determined to dislike it, you’ll never enjoy it. You need to relax a little.
You miss the whole point that way,” said Andy, taking the gun.

  He aimed.

  Three shots went off.

  Jim put his hands over his ears—but a little too late, it seemed.

  Andy gave a pleased look at the three shattered bottles, readjusting his cowboy hat. He put the gun under his belt, then fingered a cigarette out of his breast pocket and lit it. “Damn it, you need to start living your life.”

  22.

  Back on the sun-drenched island.

  Lou was lying on top of the hill they had climbed, on his belly in the grass. Liz stood on a boulder, looking toward the horizon.

  “It almost looks as if there’s another island there,” said Liz, trying to focus a little better while shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand.

  Lou didn’t say anything. He focused on a small plant that had come out of its seed. He probed it with his finger a little.

  “What if it’s the mainland?” said Liz.

  An ant was climbing over the sprout. Lou was testing its footing by snapping the stem.

  “If it’s anything, it looks more like a small island, though. It’s hard to tell.”

  Now he tested its wind endurance while blowing against it. The sprout tilted and the ant stopped a moment. Then the sprout swung back and the ant busily moved on.

  “What are you doing?” said Liz, looking down at Lou.

  “Nothing.”

  “What is it?”

  “A sprout.”

  “What kind of sprout?” asked Liz.

  “I don’t know. Just a sprout,” said Lou, poking it again with his finger.

  Liz sat on the boulder. Then she jumped down to the grass by Lou and bent forward, taking a look at it herself.

  “Do you know the Pathfinder mission they launched to Mars?” said Lou.

  “You mean the satellite?”

  “It was a ground mission, I believe. The interesting thing is they shot this package of steel and state-of-the-art technology to Mars. It landed there, and with the energy of some internal batteries it unfolded some solar panels. As the sun came up, the solar panels produced enough energy to unfold a ramp for the rover. The rover was inside the thing and drove out over the ramp to go— again with solar panels, I guess—on an excursion,” said Lou, still looking at the sprout. “If you had the right technology, you could go on and on. You could program the mission to sustain and build itself. That way you could build whatever you wanted, under the stipulation that the rover can find the resources you need.”

  “Maybe you could, but one day they would run out of gas.”

  “No—they have solar panels.”

  “But they are limited.”

  “So you use the energy of the limited solar panels to build bigger ones,” said Lou.

  “It would never work.”

  “Of course, mankind will never be smart enough to pull it off, but theoretically it would work. With one small beginning package you could program it to build an empire.” He stopped for a moment, blowing a little against the sprout. “That’s what I always think of when I see a sprout. In a way it’s the same. First there is the seed. In it is some limited energy and a lot of data. Then when it lands at the right place, it uses this energy to unfold itself; it builds a small root and two small solar panels.”

  Lou poked his finger against the two small leaves at the stem. Liz looked at it.

  “These two solar panels start to produce energy. With this energy, the root starts to pump water and nutrition out of the soil. With these new resources the plant builds bigger solar panels and a bigger root system to get more energy and more resources,” Lou said. “Isn’t that crazy? Isn’t that fantastic? And look at these two first panels. They will get shot down after the first real leaf is built. It’s just good enough to start, but it’s not really a leaf.”

  Liz looked at it a little longer, then moved close to the sprout and gave it a kiss. “You nice little sprout.”

  23.

  Evening: Jim and his brother, Andy, stand next to a pickup truck in a dusty parking lot at a train station.

  “This thing is slowly starting to grow over my head,” said Jim, throwing a stone through the dust. “I mean, in the beginning it all seemed like a good idea. But are we really allowed to manipulate destiny? Do we really understand life well enough to know what’s right and what’s wrong? I wish we wouldn’t have started with the whole thing.”

  “Come on!” said Andy. He was holding on to the open car door.

  “Well, sometimes you have to let things be the way they are, even if you think you know how to improve them,” said Jim. He was standing next to the rear wheel, looking over the lower sides of the truck toward the setting sun.

  “Look,” said Andy, “as I said before: We have to pull it off now. There is no other way. And besides, if you can improve something, why shouldn’t you? Sometimes you have to help yourself. God helps those who help themselves.”

  “What worries me is that this improving business is exactly what brought me to this mess with my writing. That starts to worry me. If this exact same thing can mess up someone’s writing, how can I be sure it can’t mess up someone’s life?” Jim said, and he reflected for a moment.

  “Come on—it’s hardly the same.”

  “Of course it is,” said Jim, kicking the tire, looking at Andy. “If you really analyze it, it’s exactly the same. I always wanted to improve something that didn’t seem good enough. It’s exactly the same if you really feel like thinking about it.” Jim made a serious face toward the descending sun. “I listened to all these agents—that’s the trouble. Do you know what they tell you? Do you want to know what crazy thing they tell you nowadays? They tell you to learn as much as possible about the best sellers of today. To basically make them one step better. They don’t want you to make your own best thing. Just make something everyone already knows, and likes, a little better. It drives you crazy.” He looked at the setting sun for a moment. “That was my whole trouble. I tried to become this perfect writer that can write best sellers like a machine. It’s crazy but it’s true. And if you don’t follow the trend, and try to do your own thing, they look at you as if you’re crazy.”

  He paused again, but this time looked to the ground. He stamped his shoe sole into the dust and looked at the pattern it created. Then, looking up again: “There are millions of beautiful things out there, and I’m such a moron and try to make up my own thing, my improved thing .” Jim looked for a beat to Andy, shaking his head slightly. “For example, just yesterday I saw this child with his mother getting off the bus. The mother had him by the hand and she nearly fell all over the sidewalk. And do you know why? Because the child was following a zigzag line on the asphalt and walked in front of the mother’s feet. Isn’t that beautiful?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah . . . I guess it is,” Andy said, throwing a stone over the dust.

  “You should have seen his big green eyes as his mother pulled him to her right. He didn’t look up at her angrily, or surprised, or anxiously; just curiously. He probably thought it was only natural to walk along a zigzag line, since it’s so much fun—I guess that’s the way you think at that age,” said Jim. “And stuff like this happens every day.” He looked for a moment to the horizon. The setting sun cast a deep shadow on his face. “The problem is, you can’t write stories about that stuff. No one really understands what you mean.”

  Andy didn’t say anything; he was kicking dust with his boots. But it was clear he was listening.

  “Like the other day in the subway,” said Jim. “It was just too great. There was this musician playing the flute. Have you ever heard someone play the flute on the subway?”

  “The flute? Heck, no.”

  “That’s exactly the thing. It was the first time for me too. All of a sudden the train slowed down to a stop. And then, in the subway station, some construction workers were making a new platform. And while this guy was playing a pretty soft melody, a construction worker started to operate thi
s pneumatic hammer. He was trying to lift the stone or something. But it didn’t work the way he wanted it to. So he tried a little harder. He got pretty sore about it and started to jerk up and down with his hammer, right while the other guy was playing this terrific melody on his flute.” Jim shook his head, remembering the scene. “But I think I was the only one in the whole car who saw it. Everyone else was just looking into space.”

  “Why don’t you write about those things, then?” said Andy.

  “What?”

  “Why don’t you write about those things?”

  “Why? I’ll tell you why. Because the problem is no one is interested in real life. No one is even interested while it’s happening—why would they be interested if you wrote it down?”

  “You could write a story about it, though.”

  “I could, but no one would care.”

  “Just make up a guy like you that runs around frustrated and can’t believe all the great things that are running down the gutter. It would be funny.” He threw another stone and laughed.

  “You’re so funny.”

  “It would be the perfect script. Just take your life. You’d only have to work out the details.”

  “Maybe it would. But no one would believe this other hing. It’s just too fantastic,” said Jim, scratching his head. “We never should have started it.” Now he shook his head slightly. “I can’t believe you put a new one here.”

  “What should I have done?”

  “I distinctly said it must be a rusty one. I know I disinctly said it. A new one is asking for trouble,” said Jim.

  “How do you get the bastard all rusty if it’s perfectly new?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jim. “There are ways.”

  “So tell me these ways.”

  “I don’t know. Pee over it and leave it out overnight.”

  “Not with the steel of today. You can’t even get lousy ools these days. That’s the trouble. Everything is stainess steel today.”

  A train was coming in, slowing down at the deserted rain station.

  Jim turned his head. “That’s my train. I really have to un now. Good-bye . . . and give my regards to your new girlfriend—what’s her name again? Ma . . . Max . . .?”